Play in Your Own Kitchen Band

Everyday objects in the kitchen or around the home can be played with to expose your young child who is visually impaired to a variety of new sounds, textures, and sources of vibration – all musical concepts that you can use in parent-child play. It also encourages tactile exploration with everyday objects. Kitchen band play is endlessly fun and different every time! Here’s how to create your own “kitchen band,” from music therapist Amanda Bryant, MM, MT-BC, NMT Fellow.

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Duration

This activity may range from 5 to 30 minutes or more depending on your child’s mood and interest.

Materials Required

Look through kitchen cupboards and drawers to find a variety of objects that can be played with to create a kitchen rhythm band. Suggested items are below:

• Pot or pan, wooden and metal spoons or utensils (try tools that are short enough for your child to hold safely and use appropriately)
• Measuring spoons are a great choice for little children!
• Whisk or cheese grater (be careful with sharp edges)
• Cookie sheet
• Variety of different size cups, to tap up and down or tap with a utensil
• Plastic food containers to turn upside down or place things in
• Colander for placing small items in to shake and rattle
  

Activity Steps

1. Sit on the floor with your child in your lap if they need support or in front of you or to your side so your child can look at the “instruments” and reach them with their hands. If your child is in a feeding chair, use the tray as a musical instrument.
2. Start by exploring your kitchen band items using hands or feet to hear sounds and feel textures of the play items. This way your child can hear and feel the different sounds and textures before being asked to use yet another object in the play routine. For example, tap on the bottoms of pots and pans with hands or feet to create different rhythms. Experiment playing with the measuring spoons as “clackers” making sound on their own before using items as a tool on another object.
3. Choose items that are the right size for your child and incorporate a variety of textures and materials. For example, explore how a wooden spoon sounds different on a metal pot than a metal spoon on a metal pot. Use a utensil to scrape on a cheese grater. Twirl different small tools inside a pot, cup, or food container to make different types of sounds. You don't need to use just kitchen tools to create rhythms.
4. Experiment with how your kitchen band instruments sound on a hard floor, on a table, on carpet, against your legs, or on another part of your body. Turn small plastic food containers over to create sounds on a surface, or experiment tapping on the tops with different tools or just your hands. Kitchen band play is endlessly fun and is different every time!
5. Don't feel the need to add singing or language at first. This allows the young child to hear their kitchen band sounds exclusively without too much “extra sound” to have to listen to.
6. When ready, add language that is fun and meaningful to your kitchen band play. Here’s how to add your own “song” to your kitchen band.

• Start by chanting the names of the objects you are playing with so that the language is meaningful to the active play you are doing with your child.
• For example, say “Pot, pot I hear a pot.” Pause and then play it… repeat.
• For example, say “Clickity-clack, the forks sound like that.” Pause and play it… repeat.
• Add your child’s name in the rhythm chant. “Jack, Jack, clickity clack!”
  

Extension Activities

• Think about how you can incorporate rhythms or sounds into all kinds of everyday routines that you do with your child, from bath time to mealtime, getting dressed or going on an errand. 
• This exercise incorporates kitchen items, but you can discover everyday objects for creating music in any room in your house. You may choose to add in the sounds of your voices to add in the names of the objects you are playing with, or your child’s name in a rhythm chant.
  

Pots and pans,
Pots and pans,
Baby's in the kitchen
With the pots and pans.
Grab those lids!
Clang those pans!
(Your child’s name) in the kitchen
With the pots and pans.